4 ms·

Seriously, reading the comments here is making me nauseous but I can't seem to stop. HN is the essence of privilege. Reporters are getting assaulted out there.

m463 6y ago
But "advertising" today is a twisted caricature of sponsorship models of years ago. Advertising, like "location services" has become a two-way surveillance system. I would love to be able to have a system of payment where we could pay a small amount of money for high-quality journalism? (and do it actually anonymously)
- egonschiele 6y ago
  Unless someone kickstarts a system like that, which would be insanely high startup cost with insanely high risk, the way to actually get to what you are talking about is for a lot more people to pay for the news, so eventually they can stop relying on advertising.
  - c22 6y ago
    Another way is to boycott news with advertising so that they're forced to find a model that doesn't rely on it. Why is advertising the only choice here? Why do you assume they'll drop that revenue stream when they "get enough subscribers"?
    - egonschiele 6y ago
      Boycotting generally doesn't work. When Trump was elected there was a lot of fuss to boycott companies that did business with Trump, but it had no effect. > Why do you assume they'll drop that revenue stream when they "get enough subscribers"? Fair, I don't know if they will. I'm just saying that I don't see a better choice on the table right now. NOT subscribing to the news is not a better choice to me.
Myrmornis 6y ago
Maybe you could say what you're saying explicitly rather than implicitly? Are you saying: we should enthusiastically consume advertising in contexts where it helps pay journalists?
- egonschiele 6y ago
  Sure, I can be more explicit. 1. News is very important, especially today. None of us would have known what happened to George Floyd if a bystander hadn't been there to videotape it. That's what reporters do all day every day all over the world for a million other topics. 2. News is dying. Papers are barely breaking even, and with covid-19, plenty of papers have folded altogether. 3. News is a good example of tragedy of the commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons). We all want it but no one wants to pay for it. 4. The HN crowd has a pretty high median income. I bet they can shell out the $11/month for a nytimes (or whatever) subscription. The Economist has a $1/week offer on right now. Washington Post has a $39/year offer I believe. 5. Despite all of this, the majority of comments here are bitching about the news and not wanting to pay for it. Why?
  - Myrmornis 6y ago
    Thanks. I wrote my thoughts elsewhere down in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373088 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373088. I'd be interested to hear your response, even if it is highly critical :)
  - drewcoo 6y ago
    1. I can't remember the last time I saw video of police brutality from a reporter. Maybe never. I think that's a great example of reporters not reporting! 2. News isn't dying so much as monopolies have taken over a not-very-well-regulated industry. That kills off competition to create better product. 3. We all pay for news. They sell our eyeballs to sponsors/advertisers. They even run "news" that is actually ads to get us to buy things or vote some way. We pay for it just like we pay Google for all their "free" services. 4. Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. Either way we pay. See #3. Also either way, we complain. Just like you did. 5. I think the complaints are largely because the news coverage sucks. See #1. That's also a pretty good reason to not want to pay more for it than we already are.

m463 6y ago

But "advertising" today is a twisted caricature of sponsorship models of years ago. Advertising, like "location services" has become a two-way surveillance system. I would love to be able to have a system of payment where we could pay a small amount of money for high-quality journalism? (and do it actually anonymously)

egonschiele 6y ago
Unless someone kickstarts a system like that, which would be insanely high startup cost with insanely high risk, the way to actually get to what you are talking about is for a lot more people to pay for the news, so eventually they can stop relying on advertising.
- c22 6y ago
  Another way is to boycott news with advertising so that they're forced to find a model that doesn't rely on it. Why is advertising the only choice here? Why do you assume they'll drop that revenue stream when they "get enough subscribers"?
  - egonschiele 6y ago
    Boycotting generally doesn't work. When Trump was elected there was a lot of fuss to boycott companies that did business with Trump, but it had no effect. > Why do you assume they'll drop that revenue stream when they "get enough subscribers"? Fair, I don't know if they will. I'm just saying that I don't see a better choice on the table right now. NOT subscribing to the news is not a better choice to me.

Myrmornis 6y ago

Maybe you could say what you're saying explicitly rather than implicitly? Are you saying: we should enthusiastically consume advertising in contexts where it helps pay journalists?

egonschiele 6y ago
Sure, I can be more explicit. 1. News is very important, especially today. None of us would have known what happened to George Floyd if a bystander hadn't been there to videotape it. That's what reporters do all day every day all over the world for a million other topics. 2. News is dying. Papers are barely breaking even, and with covid-19, plenty of papers have folded altogether. 3. News is a good example of tragedy of the commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons). We all want it but no one wants to pay for it. 4. The HN crowd has a pretty high median income. I bet they can shell out the $11/month for a nytimes (or whatever) subscription. The Economist has a $1/week offer on right now. Washington Post has a $39/year offer I believe. 5. Despite all of this, the majority of comments here are bitching about the news and not wanting to pay for it. Why?
- Myrmornis 6y ago
  Thanks. I wrote my thoughts elsewhere down in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373088 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23373088. I'd be interested to hear your response, even if it is highly critical :)
- drewcoo 6y ago
  1. I can't remember the last time I saw video of police brutality from a reporter. Maybe never. I think that's a great example of reporters not reporting! 2. News isn't dying so much as monopolies have taken over a not-very-well-regulated industry. That kills off competition to create better product. 3. We all pay for news. They sell our eyeballs to sponsors/advertisers. They even run "news" that is actually ads to get us to buy things or vote some way. We pay for it just like we pay Google for all their "free" services. 4. Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. Either way we pay. See #3. Also either way, we complain. Just like you did. 5. I think the complaints are largely because the news coverage sucks. See #1. That's also a pretty good reason to not want to pay more for it than we already are.